


Such Sweet Something

by kaixo (ballpoint)



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Eurovision, Friendship/Love, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 09:55:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17485979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballpoint/pseuds/kaixo
Summary: Vincent attends a karaoke party and gets some encouragement to sing his own song from an unexpected source.





	Such Sweet Something

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ItsADrizzit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsADrizzit/gifts).



> Happy, happy birthday, Itsadrizzit, my love. I hope this fic brings you a fraction of joy that your podfics and fandom presence has brought me over the two years we've gotten to know each other.

“I’m going to make it through this party, even if it kills me,” Vincent muttered to himself, as he stood in front of the door. 

Jaw tight, his finger raised to the door bell, only to let his hand drop. The distant chatter of birds in the leafy trees of the Hertfordshire suburb coloured the air with birdsong. Normally, the rolling green fields in view accompanied by bird song generally jollied him into a good mood. Leaving the A1 behind and swinging by this side of the world. 

The part of England perennially verdant and tidy, distant enough from the noise and bustle and pressing demands that made London, London. 

Not to mention the fact that he was mobile again, driving his own car, not bumming off teammates or hailing the odd Uber. Mobile to the point where he was able to wave off the offer from Moussa from driving over here. 

And now, he was here. Facing a stout, white door. Wedged in an ivy wreathed wall. At the corner of the door an oversized burnished copper bowl holding brightly coloured rocks and polished glass.

He could just take one step back, and another. And another. Just shuffle backwards until he got into his jeep, and returned to his digs in the capital. 

Yeah, Vincent nodded to himself. That was the ticket. He just needed to make it through this party, and breaking bread with the owner of this house wasn’t the way to--- 

The door swung open, the woman at the edge of the threshold beaming good humour with the fizz of a TV show host. 

“Vince!” she grinned, hand on the doorknob, her grin and good mood brimming up to her eyes, making them squint with the full force of it. “You made it!”

“Shani,” Vincent breathed, knowing any excuses he had were now fizzled out like a firework fuse in a downpour. 

Also, it was Shani. 

He couldn’t say no to Shani, not when she reached for his hand, grabbed his forearm and gently pulled him inside. The sleek haircut swinging around her shoulders; making her a mix of a giggly five year old you couldn’t say no to, with the glimpse of the hauteur that she’d employ at times to keep Toby in his place. 

_Toby_. 

Before he could react, even stiffen at the thought of the name, Shani hugged him, her cheek resting against his, because she was a fairly tall woman, even in stockinged feet. “Hmmm, I’m so _glad_ you’re here,” she said when she pulled back, her voice with a bit of husk, as if she’d just woken up. “We’re having Eurovision karaoke, and you’re my partner.”

And just like that, because Shani was a _Hexe_ , Vincent’s mood brightened. “Euraoke?”

“Hmm mmm,” she answered, slipping from his embrace, closing the door behind him. Shani, all movement and a studied grace. One second, back pressed at the door, beaming at him. The next, guiding him to toe off his shoes, and tugging him down the hallway. 

Their surroundings sunbright due to clever tricks of recessed lighting, as if the grey skies outside had been an illusion. 

Vacation snaps framed in the hallway, impressions of hot and bright days, interspersed with the misty greys and cool whites of cold ones. 

A push at the door opening the room, the blast of music and noise with the force of a punch in the nose. Vincent’s eyes squinting shut, his nose wrinkling. To the wall on the far side, a big TV playing the Eurovision contest entries of 2008. 

The lyrics highlighted on the screen, a small crowd sprawled across the carpet and sofas, clapping and humming to the words on the screen from the full throated roars of the European lads who had grown up with the competition all their lives, to the bemused faces of lads like Erik ‘Coco’ Lamela, who despite all his years living in Europe, always eyed the competition with bemusement. 

Jan and Mousa in the centre of the room, mics in hand, singing to each other like some leads in a TV musical. 

Their voices lusty, but not in tune. 

Off to the side accompanying them- as if they were backup singers in a boy band- were Christian and Ben, doing the humming, jazz hands and the shimmy like an old school outfit. 

Christian, fingers splayed against his chest, his body swaying with the strange throwback _bebopbeep_ of the song’s harmony. Christian, his eyes bright, his face lit with the palpable warmth he threw in the direction of Jan and Mousa. Everyone knew Christian wasn’t a singer, and not one to put himself out on stage like this. 

But looking at Jan and Mousa singing at each other and being goofy around each other, the mood fit. 

Annnd wait, Vincent knew this song from an old Renault commercial. This was a Eurovision entry? At his sharp glance in Shani’s direction, “Sebastien Tellier, _Divine_ ,” she laughed, answering his unasked question. 

“This came out before the car commercial?” Okay, Vincent knew that question was stupid as soon as it tumbled from his lips, but Shani only nodded, as she raised her mobile phone to capture the moments. 

Such as, the song finishing on a strangely forlorn note. Jan’s voice the stronger as Mousa’s cracked, and he tucked his head between the hinge of Jan’s neck and shoulder. The lyrics a mixture of English and French, and slurred. 

A strangely intimate moment, their faces glowing from the closeness of the room. Jan’s fingers squeezing his shoulders, Mousa’s palm flush against his cheek. 

Christian to the side, his eyes wide and blue and his face soft at the embrace before him. 

Vincent frowned, turning to Shani as he made to ask, _Am I missing something?_

Only for Shani to gather her hair in one hand, lifting it up and away from her shoulders with a hair grip. 

“Are we ready?” she asked, eyes bright, because she thrived on competition. Vincent let the odd moment go, faced his friend. Held his arm out for her to slip her hand through.

***

Okay, Vincent mightn’t have kicked a football in a minute. And him and Christian were in a strange game of --- whatever. Not to mention that Toby and him didn’t get on much.

However. 

When it came to Eurovision karaoke, he was no slouch.

The first thing, to do Eurovision, you had to embrace the _camp_ of it all. The overwrought ballads, the oversized hand gestures. For Euroaoke, you went big, or you went home, and he went big. In addition, you needed your partner to come on this journey with you, and Shani was just as generous. No holding back from the big notes. Their entry: Norway 2015 _A Monster Like Me_. Never mind them wearing jeans and t-shirts, Shani’s topped by an oversized cardigan. 

When they stepped into the zone, magic began. 

At the height of the song, Shani had a neat motion, sliding the grip from her hair, it spilling over her face and shoulders to great effect. Her eyes welling up with the _emotion_ of it all, her gesticulations and lunges worthy of a Soprano at the National Opera. 

Actually, people might have been able to see her from as far as the moon. 

But, as the song ended, they took the applause as their due. 

Winters of Euroaoke 2018. 

“It’s like... we’d never split up,” she dabbed at her brow with heel of her palm, covered by the slightly too long sleeve of the cardigan. 

Vincent passed her a bottle of water from one of the low surface tables. The chatter wound around them, as unobtrusive as a slight haze. 

His smile faded at the statement. Just an off the cuff sentence that spoke volumes. 

Of the year he’d spent away in Fenerbahce, or this season having surgery and recovering. 

Of how he’d returned to the club, and the air between Christian and himself tentative. As if they’d drawn breath, and were waiting for a sign to exhale. 

How Toby looked at him - and yet, never said a word to him beyond pleasantries since they’d shared a locker room again. 

“Yeah,” Vincent grabbed for his bottle, and moved through the thinning crowd into the kitchen. Not outside, no, but the light brighter, and he could breathe. Rest his hands on the kitchen island, and stare past the window to the twilight outside. 

“Vincent,” and this was Shani, her fingers chilled from the drink she’d been holding. 

“It’s strange,” Vincent raised his head, looked into her eyes. “How Toby and myself don’t get on, but you and me...”

“We get on like a... house on fire?” she finished in a sort of uptalk, as if unsure of the English idiom. It sounded close enough to his ears anyway. 

“Yeah,” he said. “You’d think me being away for a season would have thawed his feelings towards me, but noooo.”

Shani leaned against the kitchen island, drawing the ends of her cardigan together. “I am not going to apologise for Toby.”

“I’m not asking you to,” he answered, sliding a glance in her direction. 

“I think,” Shani said, holding the ends of her cardigan together in her fist like a cloak. “It’s hard, football is _heavy_. Everyone comes and goes, and you have to be strong in your heart to make a goodbye. Christian--” she breathed, her eyes lowered, her lashes dark sweeps on the tops of her cheeks. “He took it hard when you’d left.”

 _As if I wanted to_ , the words leaped onto Vincent’s tongue, primed to jump off, snarling and claws out. But he kept quiet. 

“Toby, Mousa and Jan they rallied around,” she lifted her gaze. “They got him through it. Like they have gotten him through a few hard things before. I’m not asking you to jump on Toby’s side of the boat, but--- they have history.”

“And I don’t.”

“No, you don’t,” Shani said, because all these years living in England never dulled her bluntness. 

Ha, didn’t he know it? 

At this Euroake, everyone who got the invite here were pretty close, or had been at the club for at least three uninterrupted seasons. Dele and Eric over there in the corner earlier in the evening. Eric more into Euroake because he’d been raised on the continent where they took the contest with unabashed seriousness, versus say Dele who had the dismissive attitude towards it. 

But when you were one of The Big Five and if all you had to do was just show up to get to the final, well. 

That being said, Dele threw himself into the contest with a lot of enthusiasm, but everyone knew it was all some strange mating ritual with Eric at the heart of it. 

They were an odd pair, and at times, you wondered how on earth they fit, as mismatched as they were. Dele’s studied media sheen to Eric’s direct earnestness. Both outside now, to the far end of the garden, heads together as if plotting a prank. 

“I never wanted to leave,” Vincent answered finally. “I wanted to stay, you know I ---”

The look Shani sent his direction weighed with sympathy. “Yes, but football takes you where it takes you. You know that.”

“Yeah,” Vincent said, unable to stem the bitterness in his voice. Toby had known how he’d felt about Christian, that his comings and goings weren’t his fault. That he would have stayed here- with Spurs and Christian - if he could have done. That if there were to be goodbyes--- and an image came to his head unbidden, snagged. 

“What’s up with Mousa and Jan?” he asked. Shani’s brows rushing together in a frown, before smoothing out again a minute later. 

Moments passed before she spoke, “Mousa is leaving.”

***

Maybe, in retrospect, taking his leave of Shani and seeking out Christian hadn’t been the best idea. Maybe, after holding his breath and resentment for so long, it should have been let out in sustained, low hisses. Rather like a diver coming up for air in order to avoid the bends and disorientation.

Probably he shouldn’t have snarled in greeting, “Mousa’s leaving, and you couldn’t even tell me?”

Especially when he found Christian chatting animatedly with Ben and Coco in the shed at the bottom of Toby’s garden, as they lifted up cases of drink to take to the house. 

“I--” Ben started. 

“Ayii yi yiiiiii,” Coco finished. 

Christian standing there, by the door, studiously silent, his face impassive, his eyes glacial in the weak light. 

“I think we should go,” Ben said, pointedly holding up his case of soft drinks. 

“Yessss,” Coco agreed hurriedly. “You know what Dele is like without Fantoke.”

***

“I hope they haven’t finished all the cola champagne by the time we’re done,” Christian said evenly. His voice low in the quiet, his back against the shed wall. They’d been here before, a season - a lifetime ago- kissing as if their lives depended on it.

But now -- 

“ _Christian_ ,” Vincent breathed, because Christian- Christian was someone who refused to be harried, no matter how the world pushed at him. 

“It’s a niche flavour,” Christian answered, eyes bored in the dim light. 

“I know,” Vincent started. Stopped. Closed his eyes against the distant noise of party and laughter for a moment, opened them. “I know that you and Jan and Toby and Mousa are close. I --- “

“People come and people go,” Christian lifted his gaze, the pale, direct stare of it. “You get used to it. I had to get used to you gone, remember?”

And Vincent had no response, not even to reach out and snag Christian’s jacket with his fingers as Christian brushed by.

***

The party kept going.

The deejay’s playlist fixed on the year Mousa had joined Tottenham Hotspur. Everyone had spilled out of the house into the garden. The sky clear, the air brisk, and the grass illuminated with squat lanterns along its edge. 

Two things struck Vincent. 

One, 2012 had been a strange year for music. 

Two, Jan actually knew the words to _Call Me Maybe_. No, not even mumbling the words, or sheepishly mouthing them, nope. 

He. Knew. The. Words. 

Arm around Mousa’s shoulders, mimicking the actions of a besotted teenager. Eye contact, breaking eye contact. Grinning, worrying his lower lip with his tongue. 

Mousa leaning into it and mouthing along, like two intoxicated blokes in a bar, singing at the top of their voices. Around them, Toby, Vorm and others joined in, forming a loose circle as they jumped and hopped around the pair. 

“It was coming for a while,” a voice at his ear. Vincent didn’t even turn to look in its direction. Vincent seated at the edge of the railing that made up the small gazebo. “Everything was up in the air, until it wasn’t.”

A rustle of movement, the jut of an elbow lightly grazing his thigh. Vincent looked then, across and slightly down. Christian folded over, his elbows resting on the railing. His eyes on the pair before them, Jan and Mousa, bathed in their own light, their stares fixed on each other. 

“How long?” Vincent asked, wondering how he had never seen this between Jan and Mousa before. 

“Long enough,” Christian answered. “Even when they’d played for opposing sides in the Eredivisie -- and then Mousa left for the Premier League... well.” Christian broke off and laughed. “Toby and myself used to make bets. _A season_ , we’d tell ourselves. And, _the season after that_ , but they just --- kept on going. Bonds break, you know they do.”

“Christian -”

“They do. You go away, you leave a space, and things rush in, because nature abhors a vacuum, right? Something has to fill in the space.” Christian still staring ahead, his lips quirking with wry amusement. “But their bonds are stretched thin and must break, right? They make space. Toby tried to fill in, once.”

_Toby?_

Christian nodded as if he’d heard Vincent’s incredulous thought. His answer simultaneously complete yet obtuse. “There was still a vacuum. A Mous’ shaped void. Then Mousa came to Spurs and --”

“Space filled.”

“Yeah,” Christian answered. “It’s a great story, a love story. It’s---”

“Their story.”

“Theirs,” Christian affirmed. He raised his head, his eyes lifted to Vincent, his face in deep shadows. “I don’t know if this is going to be ours.”

And what to say to that? 

Would they be singing cheesy songs that came out in 2016, when Vincent joined spurs? Not that _One Dance_ wasn’t a bop, but---

“I want to try,” Vincent said, moving his hand from where it rested by his hip nearer to Christian’s elbow. “I--”

On a breath, Christian straightened up, and moved away. _Call Me, Maybe_ segueing into Taylor Swift’s _We Are Never Getting Back Together_.

***

“It’s too late for you to drive,” Shani declared at the end of the night.

Most of their teammates lived locally, but Vincent was wedded to living in London. Okay, so it was near enough to Enfield, and the neighbourhood a bit dodgy, but it was _his_. He liked opening the window and inhaling the charged, whippy atmosphere that was London. 

“Too hipster for suburbia,” Ben had teased him once, but that was fine. 

But too hipster meant that it was too far to drive at this time of night. Shani had pressed towel and toiletries into his hands over his protests. A towel, with a transparent ‘go bag’ of razor, soap, toothbrush and a bar of soap. 

It also meant that Vincent was too wired to sleep, wandering around in the gardens. On the wrong side of two am, tottering around half drunk, still stung by Christian’s earlier remark. 

Wholly surprised to find Toby seated on the low bench near the garden’s water feature, clad in a dark jumper and striped pajamas. An incongruous image: this hunk of a man beside the features of a tiny pond, with fish, and a miniature bridge, a lantern hanging overhead, like an illuminated teardrop.

Toby’s features thrown in sharp shadows and faint highlights, arms folded across his chest, legs outstretched before him, crossed at the ankles, his eyes staring ahead at something unseen. Vincent stopped in his tracks, wavering and unsure. 

Toby and himself had never really gotten on. 

To be fair, it wasn’t as if Toby had ever gone out of his way to be unpleasant. Actually he’d been pleasant enough. Looking out for Christian within the frank interests of friendship-- and Vincent being on the opposite side of those interests. It didn’t elicit much resentment as it could have done. 

Not now, anyways. 

“Vincent,” Toby greeted, in that almost stilted, courtly tone he seemed to use only for Vincent. Vincent half wondering if he should actually tug a forelock or take the knee. 

“Toby,” he said in greeting, drawing up short, slipping his hands into the pockets of his dress trousers. 

_Mousa, eh?_ he wanted to say, be all chatty with the distance of a season away. But instead he found himself going, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that Mousa’s going away, and --”

Toby shifting, tucking his feet under him, his elbows resting on his knees, his handsome features sketched into a scowl. “This is football, like the gaffer says.”

And Vincent could only go, _hmmm_ , because Pochettino used the saying as comment, explanation and proverb. Ranging from lost matches and being bumped out of competitions to sending players away when they didn’t suit. 

“How’s your rehab going?”

“It goes,” Vincent said, a flush warming his cheeks. “I’m now working out on grass, and I’ll be looking to play with the under 23s soon.”

“And new clubs?”

The flush deepened, intensified. “I can’t see ---”

“This thing with you and Christian ---” Toby started, and Vincent could hear him almost _choke_. That brief time Vincent and Christian shared oh too long ago. When Tottenham was a dream made real, and Christian a part of that lovely interlude. Only for them to be torn from each other, and now, their torn edges yet to be patched or healed. 

“It’s --” Vincent choked out, raising his hands to block out whatever Toby was going to say, because --

“You should try,” Toby cut in. “You and Chris. It mightn’t be like Jan and Mousa - because nothing can be like Jan and Mousa-” Toby shook his head, a wistful smile tugging at his lips. “But that shouldn’t stop you from trying.”

Vincent opened his mouth. 

Closed it.

Opened it again.

Nothing came out.

Closed it again.

Shook his head, and tried again. “I don’t --”

“Not saying this thing between you two will work,” Toby continued, and okay, they were on familiar ground. However, Toby kept talking, and everything became nonsense. 

“But nothing is guaranteed, Vincent. And if you really want this--” he gave a vague wave, “between you and Chris to work, then you really should try.”

Vincent looked at his watch, looked at Toby. 

“If you must know,” Toby said, still not making sense at God’s ayem in the morning, “Christian came to Spurs in 2013.”

***

“We have to try,” the words rushed out of Vincent’s mouth as soon as Christian opened the door. Eight am on a Tuesday morning, everyone already at work or school in the leafy area off the main road that Christian lived.

“Vince --” Christian started, hand on doorknob, robe haphazardly thrown over a t-shirt and boxers. His thighs pale and thatched with gold hair in the morning light. His feet narrow and pale even against off white tile. 

Even like this, half drunk from sleep, Christian was everything. 

“I know,” Vincent barrelled on before he lost his nerve, “that Mousa and Jan’s story mightn't be ours, I--”

“I think you should come in,” Christian cut in, stepping out of the way and widening the space between door and frame. The look he sent him less the adoring gaze Vincent wished for, and more the worried look you’d send in the direction of an elderly drunk neighbour. 

Vincent huddled in, glad for the warmth that pricked the tips of his fingers, realising with a start that he’d left his house without gloves. 

Or a coat. 

But enough sensation in his fingers to fumble the phone from his pocket, and press play. The notes of _Sweet Nothing_ by Calvin Harris bouncing from the tiny speaker. 

“Vincent- what?” 

“I - you came to Tottenham Hotspur in 2013 and --” Vincent rambled on. At Christian’s utter confusion, he stopped, took it all the way back.

“I am sorry I left. And now I’m back,” he slowed down, stepped towards Christian. Christian, looking all warm and rumpled from a lie in, sheet lines on his cheeks. With a trembling hand, Vincent placed his fingers there. Skin goosebumping at the gust of warm breath from Christian’s parted lips, and the scratch of his beard. “I know Mousa and Jan’s story is beautiful and _theirs_ , but ours is no less worthy, Chris.” 

“Vince ---” 

“I don’t know how we’re going to end,” Vincent’s words picked up speed, “but --”

Christian’s eyes luminous in the morning light. His mouth tight, his Adam’s apple bobbing with each swallow. “I got used to you being away,” he whispered. “Then you come back, and -- it’s--- nothing, Vincent. It could be nothing.” 

“I’m sorry,” Vincent shook his head. “I’m sorry for everything.”

“It isn’t your fault,” Christian whispered, his voice shaky, his eye lids sliding closed as Vincent drifted closer. “But you’re asking me to live on the hope that you’ll stay. I can’t do that, you can’t ask me to do that.” 

“No,” Vincent pressed his forehead against Christian’s. “I’m asking you to live on the hope of us, that we’ll get there in the end. I love you, Christian,” and _oh_ , this wasn’t how he imagined to say it. Not in the shaky hushed notes of a secret, pleading his case. “I’m just asking for a chance. To give us a chance.” 

“A chance,” Christian nodded, eyes open, fixed and on him. 

“Champions Leagues have been won with less.”

“Then, yes,” Christian said. 

**Author's Note:**

> For itsadrizzit. Happy Birthday! 
> 
> Notes
> 
>   * [The Eurovision Song Contest (French: Concours Eurovision de la chanson),[1] often simply called Eurovision, is an international song competition held primarily among the member countries of the European Broadcasting Union.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurovision_Song_Contest)
>   * [The "Big Five" (formerly "Big Four") are the group of countries who make the biggest financial contributions to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). ](http://eurosong-contest.wikia.com/wiki/Big_Five)
> 



End file.
